


Two Princes

by Malivrag



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Childhood Friends, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-07
Updated: 2014-12-07
Packaged: 2018-02-28 11:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,760
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2731064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Malivrag/pseuds/Malivrag
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Ravagers are hired to smuggle supplies to the Kree homeworld Hala, which has been blockaded by the Xandarian fleet. While there, young Peter Quill takes off on his own to explore, and meets another runaway: Ronan, a scion of Kree aristocracy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Princes

When Peter made his getaway from the Ravagers, he couldn't believe his luck. Never before had he successfully slipped past Yondu when they made planetfall; he knew that sooner or later he'd get caught, but until then all Hala was his to explore. It didn't matter that Peter had nothing but the clothes on his back and his walkman. He was as free as he'd ever been.

He resisted the instinct to go to ground, instead heading uphill into what he assumed was the Capital City's most upscale district, trusting that Yondu wouldn't think to look for him there. A couple of patrols flew by overhead, and Peter ducked down to avoid being seen, but those were his only close calls. The going was steep, and Peter panted in the nitrogen-rich atmosphere, but the gleaming spires and intricate artwork adorning every building made his eyes pop. Even in the dim light of dusk, everything on Hala was so... clean and bright. 

He found a spot to sit and rest beneath a balcony overlooking the road, where he could lean back and rest his head against a trellis covered in exotic, leafy vines. The smell of them was intoxicating, invoking memories of picking honeysuckle back home on Earth with his mom and tasting their sweetness on his tongue. He sucked in the scent greedily, letting his eyes slide shut for just a moment --

\-- a foot stepped down onto his head.

"Augh!" Peter grasped the foot in a panic and yanked.

"Yaaaah!" Someone came crashing down on top of him. They collapsed in a heap.

"Get off me! Get off me!" Peter flailed about, whacking his assailant here and there with elbows and knees, getting a boot to the face for his trouble. The two scooted backward on their bottoms and glared at one another.

"What are you doing here?" a blue-skinned Kree boy of about his own age spat at him.

"I was taking a breather when some crazy person stepped on my head!" said Peter. "What are you doing here?"

"None of your business," the Kree boy huffed at him. From somewhere above them, they could hear the sound of a door opening and closing, and then voices. The other boy's face fell and he dove at Peter, clamping a hand over his mouth. "Be quiet."

Peter thrashed his head, but the Kree boy was much stronger than him, and when he tried to fight him, he just got sat on for his trouble. Caught in a clinch, the only things Peter could move were his eyes. He glanced back up at the trellis, and then up to the balcony. It sounded like people were walking around up there. A voice called out, "Ronan! Ronan!" and then they heard a door open and shut again.

The Kree boy heaved with a sigh of relief and then growled, very low, "If I take my hand away, and you yell, I'll choke you out. Got it?"

Peter nodded. The hand slowly pulled back from his mouth, but it's owner didn't budge from his spot atop Peter's chest. From this prone position, Peter narrowed his eyes mischievously at his captor. "You're running away from home, aren't you?"

The Kree boy shushed him, his unreally blue eyes gleaming in the dark.

Peter smirked. "I bet that was you they were calling for. Ronan. Yeah, that's you. You climbed from the balcony onto the trellis because you're running away from home."

"I can still choke you out," said the Kree boy, Ronan, in an exasperated tone.

"I could yell and get you busted," Peter said. "Or, you could let me up and play nicely. I'm kind of an expert on running away from home."

Ronan gave him a once-over. "Really?" He didn't sound convinced.

Peter was a bit offended. "Yeah! I do it all the time. I've been all over the galaxy, from the dog stars to Knowhere. Where are you going?"

"None of your business," said Ronan, but he cautiously moved off of Peter's body, allowing him to stand up.

"Is that, like, the only thing you know how to say?" asked Peter. Ronan gave him a questioning look, and Peter shrugged. "Never mind. Okay, well, seeing as you're such an expert at being on your own and all, I'll just be on my way." He nonchalantly stuck his hands in his pockets and began to amble off, counting on his read of Ronan to be accurate. In his head, Peter counted the seconds. _One... two... three..._ his foot stepped out onto the street...

"Wait," said Ronan, running up behind him. "I -- I've never been on my own before. Where are you going?"

Peter smiled to himself, satisfied at his ability to read people. He was getting good at this. "Oh, I thought I'd go explore the Tenth Ward. You know, tourist stuff." He looked over his shoulder to lock eyes with the Kree boy. "You wanna come with me?"

Ronan mouth gaped open so that Peter could see his black gums, his black teeth and tongue. "The _slums_?"

If this kid thought Hala's Tenth Ward counted as a slum, he was even more sheltered than Peter had first thought. Leaving him on his own would practically be a criminal act, Ronan wouldn't last the night on his own. "You ever seen the moons rise over the vertical squats? Follow me." He gave an inviting tilt of his head, and a moment later he heard the sound of Ronan's well-shod boots on the pavement following after him.

Ronan tagged along after him until they made it to the edge of the orbital superhighway that separated the most elite districts of Hala from the low-land Wards that housed the majority of the Kree population. The two boys lay on their bellies to peer down at the small gravimetric hovercraft going busily to and fro. The drop was about twenty times their body lengths, to the shiny-slick aggregate path that allowed the hovercraft to defy gravity and zip noiselessly along. Such a fall would shatter bones.

Ronan got up to his knees and wiped his sweaty hands on his shirt. He looked a bit nervous. "We have to turn back. There's no way across the orbital superhighway on foot, even if we could get down there without breaking our necks."

Peter dug around in his pockets. "Those are some nice boots you're wearing. Do they have metal in the soles?"

Ronan looked at him oddly. "Yes... the soles have reinforced metal structu-- what are you doing?!" Peter had produced two small metal plates from one of his pockets and handily attached them both to the soles of Ronan's boots. A soft buzzing sound, and then then a small blue light blinked faintly. Ronan lifted first one foot and then the other, craning his neck back to look at the blinking blue lights uncomprehendingly as Peter looped something over his wrists.

"Are you trying to kidnap me?" cried Ronan. Peter just laughed at him, making the young Kree positively maroon with fury.

"I'm givin' you a way off this rock! Now, let me fit this over your hand like a glove. See that button in the palm of your hand? Push it once to activate the gravimetric device on your soles. Not yet though, we still have to get down there --" Peter pointed to the orbital highway below them. "Then push it twice to deploy the tether. To release, you have to press in and hold it down for two seconds. That will release the tether so we can glide to a stop. Got it?"

"Are we going to -- ride the orbital highway?" Ronan sounded as though he couldn't believe what he was saying.

Peter snapped a pair of gravimetric nodes onto the soles of his own shoes and activated his mask. "Think of it as your first flying lesson. C'mon!"

And with that, he launched himself off the side of the orbital highway, dropping in seconds into the heart of traffic. One push -- and the gravimetric nodes were activated, stopping his descent. Two pushes, and the tether deployed, shooting out to latch onto the back of a passing craft. The jerk was enough to steal the breath from his lungs, but only once he was in transit, surfing the anti-grav, did Peter chance a glance behind him.

Ronan was right behind him, having tethered a craft of his own only seconds after Peter. Admiration flooded through Peter. He'd half-thought the Kree boy would chicken out and run back home. Peter had surfed orbital superhighways before with the Ravagers, but his first time had been riding piggyback on Kraglin, while making a quick getaway from a deal gone bad. He'd never seen anyone take to tethering craft like Ronan -- a natural. Maybe this was a sign of that vaunted physical superiority that the Blue Kree were always going on about.

They ducked around passing craft, weaving into and out of the path of danger as the craft they were surfing turned corners and dove down the steep drops that led to the lower Wards. Peter knew just enough Kree that he could recognize the numerals -- they passed Ward Twenty-One, Ward-Twenty, and then on down, until the sign for the famous Tenth Ward appeared. He raised one hand to indicate the direction in which he was going, hoping that Ronan was paying attention, then angled his body weight and released tether.

Their momentum slingshotted them down the exit, and they grinded up the walls of the orbital superhighway, until they popped up on the other side over a civilian walkway, and had to deploy their tethers again to catch hold of buildings to slow themselves down. Peter came down a bit harder than he meant to, crashing end over end, tearing up the ornamental lawn of some nice building, before skidding to a halt, face down.

Fortunately, his mask protected him from getting his face scraped off. "Ugh," said Peter, sitting up and dusting himself off. He deactivated his mask and shook his head, trying to get his bearings.

Ronan landed as light as a feather just a couple feet away from him. "I thought you'd hurt yourself, but I see you landed on your head. So nothing of importance could be damaged," Ronan told him dryly.

Peter blinked at him. "Was that a joke?"

Ronan gave him a superior look that might have had a smirk peeking around the edges.

"It was! You made a funny!" Peter tried to stand up and wobbled on his feet. "Har-de-har-har."


End file.
